So did his questions about the baby.
Not that she needed a man around to be interested or to help her put together furniture or to eat her grilled cheese. Nope. It was just that knowing someone like him was around was nice.
As she went to the kitchen window, she spotted Jared, whose cowboy hat was tipped so low that she couldn’t see much of his face.
The quiet drifter who’d wandered into her life. He really didn’t belong—not at her dinner table and definitely not anywhere near her libido.
Too bad her libido wasn’t listening, though. It was burning in the center of her, low and deep, tingling as she watched him bending to a knee in the dirt, his hands encased in those heavy gloves that he probably wore on the Harrison ranch as he mended fences and worked until his muscles strained against his shirt, just as they were doing now.
Blowing out a ragged breath, she rinsed the dishes and wiped down the counters. Then she went to the secondhand faux-leather sofa in the family room, turned on a reading light and sat down.
There’d be no more looking out kitchen windows today. No, sir.
No more mulling over Jared Colton.
Instead, she grabbed Tony Amati’s journal, which was waiting for her on the worn leather chest that served as a coffee table.
Leaning back on the sofa, she propped up her feet, opening the book, its brittle pages smelling like an old house.
“Just what are you about, Tony?” she murmured as she started reading.
While she immersed herself in his entries about the much younger woman he loved, she lost track of time.
It is hard to be blind—or to at least attempt it. Because this is how I spend so much of my time when I see her in town, strolling down the boardwalk, her gaze straight ahead while I pretend not to see her or the secretive smile she wears while she pretends she doesn’t see me, as well.
Annette turned the page, imagining the dark-eyed former Texas Ranger in front of the St. Valentine Hotel or the old mercantile store, lounging on a bench, smoking a cigar and aching for the woman he loved.
What had she looked like? Was this even the woman who might’ve given birth to Tony’s child?
Today, she went into the bridal boutique, and it was all I could do to keep from going inside to stop her from trying on the dress she is to wear on her wedding day to another man. But what would I have done then? Ridden off with her into the sunset? Taken her someplace where no one knows our names? I don’t want that sort of life for her, because I know what it is to need a new home, away from everything you have known before.
Again, Annette paused. Tony had needed a new home? Was that the reason he’d ended up here, out West?
Why did it sound as if he hadn’t come here out of choice?
She felt a kinship with him; she’d run away from the only life she’d known, too, but she’d never heard that Tony had been fleeing something. In the articles Violet and Davis Jackson had written about him, he was known as a man who’d supposedly made his way to what would eventually become St. Valentine just to find a better life. He was an American success story.
But, from the way he’d written this, she wasn’t so sure about that.
I should have stayed away from her, but I am not so strong. I walked by the boutique window, looking out of the corner of my eye, hoping to see her again...and hoping not to....
Yet there she was, and I nearly broke all my promises to myself about the other night, when we gave in to each other for the first time and vowed to keep it a secret. She was in her dress, reluctantly showing it to her best friend in the world, who held her hand over her heart and smiled in approval. A white dress, just as pure as her sighs whenever we kiss. Just as beautiful as she could have been if life had not made me what I am—a man who is all wrong for her.
The thought of that white dress intrigued Annette’s imagination. Once upon a time she had owned one of those, too, and it had also been for the wrong husband. She’d sold it months ago, getting only a fraction of what it was worth, although it had been enough for her to purchase some pots and pans for her new kitchen.
A good trade, even if she said so herself.
But as the image of the dress faded in her mind’s eye, her gaze fell on the last words she had read.
A man who is all wrong for her.
From the backyard, the sound of metal hitting dirt intruded on her thoughts.
Jared. Keep-to-himself, secretive, is-he-or-isn’t-he-trustworthy Jared.
He was all wrong for her, too, no matter what her sex drive told her with all its revving and purring.
Jeez, when were the hormones going to fade? Then again, she’d read that some pregnant women were hornier than ever at this stage.
Great.
She put down the journal, closing its cover gently, letting her hand linger on it. It was almost as if she didn’t want to crush the feelings Tony Amati had written inside.
Then she went to the baby’s room to get some work done, shutting the door behind her.
Blocking out the sound of Jared in her backyard.
* * *
The minute Jared was off work the next day, he raced the sunset to get to Annette’s, knowing that she would be done with her shift by now.
She’d given him the key to the backyard gate yesterday before he’d left, probably because he’d looked so defeated at not having found anything.
“It’s too early to give up,” she’d said. “Just come back tomorrow, whether I’m here or not.”
He’d thanked her, wondering how much deeper he could dig along the fence line before he infringed on her actual garden. He didn’t want to start uprooting every single herb, so he decided that, tonight, he would concentrate his effort outside the fence because it was still close to where she’d unearthed the journal.
By the time night fell, with the stars shining down on him, he’d turned over a lot of ground outside her picket fence—and he’d attracted some attention from Annette’s neighbors, although no one had come out and asked him what he was doing. If they did, he was prepared to give them a story about hearing there were arrowheads out here or what-have-you. For all they knew, it could be a quirky hobby of his.
He stood, leaning on his shovel, surveying all the open land that ran from the condo complex to a playground off yonder.
Was it possible that there were Tony Amati artifacts scattered from here to there instead of inside her property?
He flexed his gloved hands, which had gotten tight, but he was damned if he was going to give up yet.
A voice floated to him in the darkness. “Remember that gopher in Caddyshack?”
He hadn’t expected to feel like a ten-alarm fire was raging in his gut just at the sound of Annette’s voice, but there it was.
He tried not to show how she affected him as he stripped off his gloves and tucked them into his back jeans pocket. “What about gophers?”
Handing him a big ceramic mug with steam curling from it, she said, “The one in that movie wasn’t your ordinary digger. He was pretty much the superhero of gophers. You could’ve given him a run for his money, though.” She gestured toward the upset earth around them.
“If I had a dime for every hole I’ve made during the past two days...” he said as the aroma of hot cocoa infiltrated his senses. He hadn’t realized until now how good it would taste here in the mild chill of the night. Even if winter was generally kind in this area of Texas, the darkness still had a bite to it tonight.
He propped his shovel against the fence. She blew at her drink, cupping her mug with both hands. She was wearing a long felt coat over her waitress uniform, telling him that she had come straight home from the diner.
“Long shift today?” he asked.
“No. I hung around for a short time after work ended. Violet Jackson came in.”
<
br /> Wonderful. “So the reporter’s sniffing around again.”
“Sure enough. She and Davis just won’t give up on the Amati story. Even getting married during the middle of it all hasn’t stopped them from chasing down more leads. I think they’ll be on it until they’ve solved all Tony’s mysteries.”
“Sorry you’re involved with this. They know I eat at the diner, and they think I confide in you about Tony.”
It seemed as if she were about to launch into her own investigation about the reasons he was so obsessed with the man, but she held back.
“I’m sure you’re right,” she said. “But Violet’s so nice and casual about chatting me up. Not that I had anything to report to her.”
Annette started to walk, and he followed without really even thinking about it. It could’ve been the stars above. It could’ve been her perfume.
It could’ve been anything about her that he couldn’t resist, although he damned sure was trying.
“You’d think,” he said, “that she and Davis have some sort of sixth sense about things, like she knows you found the journal.”
“I doubt it.” Annette laughed. “Although...”
“What?”
She took a moment, then shook her head. “I read Tony’s journal all the way through after you went home last night. There’re some odd things in there, don’t you think? Things that might turn any investigation in another direction.”
My terrible sins...
As the phrase stayed with Jared, he and Annette arrived at the nearby playground, where the swings stirred in a slight breeze and the slides and monkey bars cast shadows on the ground.
Jared leaned against the swing-set pole, his heart beating faster than usual. He could’ve sworn that it was loud enough for Annette to hear it.
“You didn’t say anything about those ‘odd things’ to Violet, right?” he asked.
“No.”
She gave him a long glance that sent a million pleasant—and forbidden—shivers down his body. Then she sat in one of the swings.
“Why does it matter, Jared?” she asked. “Why don’t you want them to know anything about your interest in Tony?”
“Because privacy is a virtue.” And it was a necessity for some who liked to remain a stranger. Life was easier that way, never having an opportunity to let anyone else down as he’d done to others.
Annette cocked her head, and her unbound hair spilled over a shoulder, catching the moonlight. He ached at the sight, averting his gaze.
“I just don’t get you sometimes,” she said softly.
The simple words pierced him, though they probably wouldn’t have mattered as much coming from anyone else.
And that was probably why he found himself talking again.
“Maybe Tony tried to keep his life under wraps so he could start over from a past that didn’t sit well with him, and I don’t intend to exploit that for public consumption,” he said. “Maybe he did things that...”
Shamed him?
She dug her sneaker heels into the dirt, holding on to the swing chain with one hand and her mug with the other. “We all have things that we run from. I know that better than anyone.”
He thought of her left-at-the-altar groom and the baby she was hiding from her good ol’ cheating ex-fiancé.
Maybe she is a lot like me, with all this running, he thought. Only she doesn’t have as many years on her, or as much to feel bad about.
It’d feel so good to set down for a minute all the mental baggage he was carrying, or to have someone look him in the eye and tell him that, someday, he could start again and make amends, as Tony Amati might’ve done, based on the cryptic things he’d said in that journal.
He drank from his mug. “We both have ‘others’ we’ve left behind. I think the two of us should probably leave things at that.”
“Can I just ask who you mean?”
Why would she want to ask? But the mere fact that she did brought out that ray of lightness in him that kept popping up around Annette.
“An ex-wife,” he finally said.
He watched her push the swing back a little, and as it eased forward, the chain creaked like a haunted echo. He wondered if the daughter he’d just failed to mention had ever liked swinging.
Annette must’ve noticed something in the way he was gritting his jaw because she drank her cocoa, silent. Nearby, the sound of a romantic Louis Armstrong song floated out from one of the condos, and as he glanced there, he saw that Annette’s was the only window without lights or decorations to commemorate the upcoming Valentine’s Day Festival, which tied in with the town’s name and was expected to attract even more tourists.
For some reason, that made him feel hollow because if anyone deserved color in their windows, it was Annette.
She spoke. “Yesterday, in the nursery, when you were putting together the furniture...”
“Yeah?”
“I got the feeling there was something going on there, Jared. Now, if I’m prying, you go ahead and tell me, but if I’m right...”
Hell, he wasn’t going to get anything past her. But instead of pouring out his soul, he offered up something to keep her happy.
“I was adopted,” he said, “so I guess all the baby stuff made me kind of...soft.”
“You mean sentimental?”
If he’d been expecting her to react to him being an unwanted baby, she didn’t reward him with dramatics. And he relaxed a little.
“I don’t get sentimental,” he said, taking another drink.
“Naturally.” She smiled.
His chest warmed, but he chalked that up to the cocoa.
“So,” she said, “that’s why you asked me what I intend to do with my baby. Because you were wondering if I was going to give him or her away like someone did to you?”
Yup, she’d heard the pain in his voice yesterday, and he wanted to curse himself for being so transparent.
He didn’t say anything, and she stood from the swing. One step, two. The closer she got to him, the faster his pulse raced, the hotter his skin got.
And it definitely wasn’t because of the cocoa.
“Jared,” she whispered, “I wouldn’t give my baby up for the world, and I imagine your mom and dad felt the same way about you, even though it turned out that they couldn’t keep you.”
He forced himself not to flinch at that. But there was something about her determination to love her child and to make him feel better about someone loving him that got to him.
When he risked a glance at her, she was merely inches away, all soft skin, angelic hair and big blue eyes.
He melted, not knowing how to stop it.
And not knowing how to stop himself from leaning down, a breath away from her, as the stars and moonlight took him over.
Chapter Five
Annette closed her eyes out of pure anticipation and instinct, smelling the heady scent of Jared’s skin.
Hay and musk, she thought. Cowboy and all man.
As she held her breath, she didn’t stop to think how crazy this was, being here, a heartbeat away from kissing Jared Colton, the town cipher.
She only wanted to give in to this dizzying moment.
When his lips brushed over hers, she groaned at the burst of electricity that ran from head to toe, sizzling in her veins and burning her to the core.
But he didn’t do anything more than that.
Was he testing her, seeing if she would shy away? Seeing if he should kiss her again?
Little did he know that Annette hadn’t felt this alive in—how long? Years? Ever? Before she could think about her determination to live without any man to complicate her new, improved life, she stood on her tiptoes, seeking his lips before he could entirely pull away.
While pressing her mouth against his, she barely felt herself weakly extending her arm to the side, dumping her hot chocolate mug to the ground. She heard Jared do the same with his, just before he made a low sound in his throat, then cupped her face in his palms, deepening the kiss.
But, in spite of all the passion, it was so innocent. His lips on hers, fitting together perfectly, just like a first kiss should be.
A wave of yearning swept over Annette. Warm and hot at the same time. Good and bad, because she didn’t want this to stop here, even though she knew that it should.
Still, there was something about this man that made her want to throw caution to the wind, to forget about how she’d gotten to St. Valentine and why.
To forget that she barely knew a thing about him.
All she really knew was that he tasted like chocolate, that his lips were really soft for a man who usually wore such a hard expression and that she could stay here all night in his arms.
When he drew in a breath then backed away from her, she gripped his wrists before he could pull away entirely.
The music that had been playing in the near distance traced the air with a murmur. Thank God, too, because she didn’t know what to say right now. Heck, she didn’t even know if she could say anything. It seemed too hard to fill her lungs with oxygen again, too hard to think or to string a sentence together.
“Annette...” Jared finally said.
Here it came, she thought. An apology. An “I really shouldn’t have done that.”
Even if she didn’t know him that well, she could predict that much about him.
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry.” She kept holding on to his wrists, even though his palms were still under her jaw, his thumbs resting on her cheeks and branding her skin.
The Cowboy's Pregnant Bride (St. Valentine, Texas) Page 6
